The Kaberle Trade Pool

(Authorâ€™s note: credit goes out to MLHS reader the stache, whose comment, â€œIs it possible to start up a poll/page on the Kaberle deal with every member giving their ONE Kaberle deal and whoever has the closest after the fact idk gets mad propsâ€ is the basis for this article.Â Good on ya, buddy)

Salutations, true beleafers! We stand but a month away from the 2010 NHL draft in Los Angeles, where Burke and the boys from Scouting and Development will be showing up like beggars at the ball.Â The consensus amongst Leaf fans and hockey analysts is that our faithful #15, Tomas Kaberle, shall be brought to market in LA and sold to the highest bidder.

Tomas Kaberle is entering the last year of a five year, $21 250 000 contract, which has a limited No Trade Clause.Â This clause is void between June 25 and August 15, and the belief is that with a loaded Leafs blueline featuring Dion Phaneuf, Mike Komisarek, Luke Schenn, Carl Gunnarsson and Francois Beauchemin that the 32 year old Czech rearguard is expendable.Â And marketable: he tallied 49 points this past season, 25 of them on the power play.Â He remains one of the premier offensive defensemen in the league, averaging better than half a point per game from the back end for his career.Â For those of you who havenâ€™t been living under a rock for the past 3 or 4 years, this entire paragraph has been quite pointless.

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The comments section on the site is inundated with readersâ€™ thoughts on all manner of Leaf deals, and the focus (likely since the inception of this site) has surrounded where to trade Kaberle, for whom, and why.Â Now, while itâ€™s not certain that Kaberle will be traded (I mean, anything is possible… except for skiing through a revolving door), it seems illogical to have 26.325 million locked up in 7 defenders.

So in the spirit of being an arm chair GM, and with great thanks to the stache, let us all offer our own proposals on the Kaberle trade.Â First, some brief ground rules:

-Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â List the one proposal you think makes the most sense to you.Â What do we get, what does the trading partner get.Â Format it however you wish.

Iâ€™ll use this page as a reference, and compile the data.Â If/when Kaberle is traded, Iâ€™ll go over the posts to determine the winner.Â The clear winner(s) will be whoever gets the trade spot on perfect.Â Of course, years in an Arts program have proved to me that perfection rarely exists, so whoever comes closest (imagine a game of horseshoes, closest combination of team/players/picks headed to Toronto as well as players/picks leaving Toronto) will win.

As to the prize, well… what do most people care about when it comes to sports predictions? Having irrefutable evidence that YOUâ€™RE RIGHT!Â Bragging rights have mattered ever since Thomas doubted that Jesus had risen from the grave.Â Also, you could like…take my potentially poisonous Bryan McCabe jersey off my hands (itâ€™s really ruining the fung shui of my room.Â Seriously, thereâ€™s nothing in the book that talks about where to put horrid iconography related to overpaid, underperforming athletes).

For posterityâ€™s sake, hereâ€™s my trade proposal:

To DAL:
Tomas Kaberle; PHX 4th Round pick in 2010 (112th overall)

To TOR:
Brad Richards; DAL 2nd Round pick in 2010 (41st overall)

Explanation: Working relationship between both GMs.Â Dallas has a lot of scoring up front, but lacks a top flight puck moving d-man.Â The Stars can move Benn to centre; and still have Ribiero.Â Toronto needs to beg, borrow or steal for proven offensive weaponry and Richards is just that.Â Further, the cash strapped Stars will have 3.55 million taken off their cap, which is well worth the â€˜priceâ€™ of a second round pick if the money can be put into re-signing some of their RFAs.Â Offset in monies/cap hits exchanged can be effectively nullified through the demotion of Jeff Finger to the Marlies.Â Both players are on one year deals, so if the trade is disastrous, it is only the case for the 2010-2011 season.

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Michael Stephens has been writing for Maple Leafs Hotstove since 2010, and has featured in the 2010 and 2012 Maple Leaf Annuals. Former Editiorial Intern at The Hockey News. Undergraduate degree from the University of Windsor. Chat me up about all things hockey on twitter @MLHS_Mike